My Plate

Although I felt that I was fairly health conscious, keeping the Food Journal  caused me think every time I made a decision about what to eat.  Often, I made a better choice knowing that I would be logging that food into a journal.  Despite the fact that the only one holding me accountable was me, I still made the effort.  Logging all of my fitness activity made me realize how often I decide that something else is more important and put the exercise off until “tomorrow”.  I made exercise more of a priority when I started tracking it (and the calories burned) into my log.  I know that my children really admire their teachers and love to have something in common with them outside of school.  When they discovered that two of their teachers were runners, they were even more enthusiastic about completing their first 5k.  I may follow the example of one of the teachers and keep a collection of race bibs at school.  At the very least I will share my participation in different fitness activities with my students.  It also might be useful to keep a color coded food journal with me so that I can share with my students how I track not only what I eat, but whether or not I am eating balanced meals through the day.  I’m certain that there are MyPlate resources available for use in schools.  I could use them in the classroom to help the students have at least a basic understanding regarding balanced meals, even if their balance looks different from the balance on the .gov Plate.  It might be beneficial to address that recommended diets are usually a reflection of the dominant culture.  Reading a book like “Everybody Cooks Rice” might be a nice way to look at all of the different cultures represented by all the dinners in a single neighborhood.  If the students were to keep their own journals, we could track how many servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. they consume in a day and perform some single digit addition for K-1.  If the students were not comfortable sharing their own diets, we could count the calories in a story book, maybe “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”  For older students, we might include some calorie information for different foods.  We could review how much exercise would be required to burn the calories from a list of different foods (e.g. how many minutes of running for one carrot, one slice of bread, one apple, one donut, one corndog).  They could set their own nutrition and/or fitness goals and keep a journal of their progress.  They could write about the goal they chose and why it is important to them.  They could track their progress and write a few sentences about how they are feeling about reaching their goals and if they are noticing any changes in themselves.  We could have them track their pulse rates before and after recess as a lead in to a section on heart & lung function.  With the cooperation of the PE teacher we could track pulse rates after specific activities and compare which made our hearts beat faster. 

When I have a specific goal, I prioritize the exercise/training required to complete the goal.  When I turned 40, I decided that by my next birthday I was going to 1) run a 10k, 2) be competitive in Advanced Black Belt Hyung competition, and 3) get back to my pre-baby weight.  I worked hard on training for the first two and as a result, the third happened automatically.  When I reached my goals I was inspired to set a new one.  That next year I completed a half-marathon with my mom.    I did not set another fitness goal until this year.  I have set a very short-term fitness goal for myself, the 6-week fitness challenge on EA Active Sports, but intend to find another 10k to run in the Fall so that I feel committed to running again.  I am only a week into the 6-week challenge, but I haven’t missed a workout yet.  What I can do for my students is model commitment to my health and set challenging but achievable goals.  I hope that I can help them to do the same.